Statements & Writings

Art in the Cycle of Fulfillment

"It is an age of universal reformation."1 "The history of humanity as one people is now beginning."2 "Endowed with the wealth of all the genetic and cultural diversity that has evolved through past ages, the earth’s inhabitants are now challenged to draw on their collective inheritance to take up the responsibility for the design of their future."3

Across our planet and across the lives of its people, stretches a yearning search for purpose. A search that must lead inevitably to the realization of the innate nobility and excellence of the human spirit. Such a purpose must be sought through motivations that transcend the constantly changing panorama of underling materialistic assumptions* that artificially impose division on human societies.

The purpose of human life is to know and to love God, and to carry forward an ever advancing civilization.* The function of the arts in human life need be nothing less than to facilitate this very purpose for which we were created.

The real substance of all art is compassion. The process of art is essentially a communication of compassion that operates through the reality of our oneness. Because we are human we have humanity in common. We are in nature and nature is in us. By a common natural kinship in our sense of beauty, of truth and humanity, our unity is revealed.

Knowledge is the result of investigation, consultation, detachment and time. Scientific knowledge carries forward civilization through a process whereby investigations are made and the results subjected to a wide consultation of concerned and experienced individuals through which errors are dispassionately filtered out leaving that distilled understanding which is scientific knowledge.

The arts create and invigorate civilization through much the same process. Investigations ane experiments are pursued by individuals and then placed before the audience of posterity. Through a consultation of the heart that may take generations that which is mundane or destructive is filtered out leaving a refined fruit that illuminates, inspires and glorifies the true nobility in human beings.

By constructing civilization from the results of this process humanity moves as a species along a path of discovery ever more deeply revealing the spiritual reality of our own inner essence. As science reaches outward to discover the structure of the universe so art reaches inward to discover the spiritual fragrance of our own hearts. Both these journeys reflect that great journey which is the return to God. We are the members of one family, the inhabitants of one home and the inheritors of one future.

Kenji Konishi

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The Creative Act

Creation is the first act, the first event, the first deed, the primordial origin of all. Man, created by God in the image of God, has the magnificent capacity to mirror the divine attributes of God and thus to create.

Death, the boundary in the realm of space and time of our individual bodily presences, is overcome, overwhelmed and powerless in the face of the created. The original nothingness, the void, is broken, indeed obliterated by the creative act.

Art, the human parallel of the divine creation, is the externalization of an inner essence. It is the physical manifestation of spirit. Painting may be the true alchemy, the transformation of the lead of the of the latent potential of color, canvas, and spirit into the golden glory of beauty, meaning, and the soaring of the human heart.

For me art is the sublime exaltation, the transcendence of expression and accomplishment over isolation and mortality. This plastic manipulation is an allegory revealing the power of life over death. The artist peruses a crystallization of the experience of living, creating a plastic metaphor for love or knowledge that others share without the ball and chain of words and language.

By a common naturel kinship in our sense of beauty, of truth and humanity, our separation is bridged and my alienation is healed. As the outline of a human hand on the cave wall says, “I was here. I am as you are” my paintings become a message in a bottle cast upon the sea of chance and posterity to find a beaching in some unknown distant context.

Though my work may find its home in a place far from me there will always be a human eye to see it and a human heart to know me. As I transform that which I am into that which I create, potential becomes realized, essence becomes external, and the book of existence is written with an indelible ink that death cannot erase.

Kenji Konishi

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The Threshold of Recognition

In the most general sense my intent is communication. My art is a communion with my inner self and a unification with that essential heart of others which sees and knows. It is meant to take down the veil between us.

To that end I am interested in how we see. How do we recognize object, subject, symbol and meaning? The process of recognizing an object may at first thought seem simple enough, but in truth it defies definition. What makes a chair a chair and at what level of abstraction does the painted image of a chair become unrecognizable as anything but brush strokes?

On the next level I ask; how do we perceive subject? Alone an apple is just an apple. However if I add a fig leaf next to the apple an aura of inference begins to emerge. One may wonder if this selection of objects reflects an intent. The painting has become about something. If then I paint an apple with a bite removed in the hand of a man in wilderness cowering in fear and wearing the fig leaf, there will remain no doubt that this is a portrayal of a well known biblical parable.

In this case the subject has become defined. But what has occurred in the process of definition? We have moved from object through subject to symbol. A portrait of Adam and the apple is a symbol of powerful meaning. Many questions may be asked and investigations made. Are there innate symbols rooted in the human mind? Does the color red evoke passion universally or is it a learned symbol?

I have come to believe that the visual vocabulary is accumulative. In other words, what we have seen effects how we see and how much we see. My concern then is to explore the threshold of recognition and to push it forward, to infer rather than to depict, to reference myth and even to make myth. How it is that we recognize what we see is critical on the deepest possible level. If Christ returned how would I know Him?

I suspect that an underlying reality universal to all who see is present in such things as color, shapes, and the human form. It is possible to arouse associations subliminally bypassing the conscious mind thereby leaving the viewer with a sense of inner meaning lingering under the surface.

To disturb the viewer with a sense of meaning intended yet undefined is often my aim. For the clues to that which is deepest within us I will study philosophy, art history, archaeology, Tibetan mysticism, or whatever may deepen my understanding of what it is to be human.

Beneath an olive tree, in the dirt, I once found a tiny broken bird, an infant lost from its nest, an orphan. It cried out so I carried it home. What else could I do? Naked and helpless it would have been eaten by the cats if I had left it in the road. I didn't think it would live but I hoped at least to give it a better death. In my home, in an improvised nest, the tiny life of this sad and innocent casualty of chance hung on.

It lived on water, soft grain, and ground meat. I had no idea what kind of bird it was. It seemed to be reasonably healthy in a few days. It regularly screamed to be fed. I fed its tiny squawking face each day to see where this path might lead until in time I discovered a mockingbird had come to live with me. It learned to perch on my finger and ride on my shoulder long before it ever sang, before I knew what it was. It began to sing before it tried to fly. It started with only one call, but after it began within a couple of weeks it gained an impressive collection of different whistling bird songs. It would mix them and change them, always improvising. Mockingbirds are jazz musicians. It is a kind of magic.

When it started to fly it nearly killed itself. It would stand on the edge of the nest and shuffle its feathers and shake. Then it would give five or six good strong flaps of its wings but still cling to the perch. Then it would dive straight into the floor. Not very good. About the time I decided that it really would be necessary to find a way to teach it to fly it discovered how to go straight ahead. That was a relief. When it started smashing into the windows I gave it its freedom. It hopped on my shoulder one day and we went for a walk. Then it was gone. We may have passed that same olive tree. The whole adventure took several weeks.

There were times when I would wonder what may have happened to my friend the mockingbird. One day I found a dead one, a smashed and dried up carcass of a mockingbird. There was a still moment of sadness, and then the understanding came that all the mockingbirds are the same creature. The species is encapsulated in the individuals, and each individual describes the species. The one part is in all the parts, and all the parts are in every part. Life is eternal and nothing ever dies. Immortality is all the same moment, everywhere, forever, vivid. The now is the everlasting life, the sacred snow-white Spot. All reality is simultaneously present in the mind of God.

So what is it I want for being alive? A good death. That is it. To feel in the moment of passing from this world, satisfied with who and what I have been. When a carpenter makes a bookshelf and is pleased with his work the universe has grown. He has made something that will serve. People use up their lives like misspent vacations. Think of a family vacation lost to slow traffic, arguments, misunderstandings and bad weather. I don't want to die feeling my life went like that, as though it somehow evaded me and I was never really here. I want to die well, without shame or regret. I want to be a fashioner of deeds, not a victim of my time.

When I was young I wanted to write symphonies and change the world. I wanted justice and wisdom to rule on earth. Now I see that the universe is so immense it hardly matters what size anything is. What is the relative significance of my life when civilizations die? Whole galaxies explode and all the worlds within them surrender to their limitations. But when we see that everything is infinitely tiny and insignificant we also see that everything is infinitely great and meaningful. It is not the size of what we do that matters, it is how much love we put in it. When one gives a thing to God, to the universe, it becomes immeasurable, infinite. If I will do today whatever it is that can be done, small though it may seem, that will be enough, to make a bookshelf or love a fellow human being when they need it, to give myself to something better than I am, to do whatever I am here to do, even if it is simply to save a mockingbird.

Kenji Konishi 12/29/99

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Five Rooms In A Dream

One of those dreams that feel so potent, the kind that we remember and think about, came to me long ago. It came only once, but I have never forgotten the impression it made. I sometimes wish to have it again but nothing happens. Perhaps it is too strong to experience more than once.

In the dream I wake up. Of course, I am still asleep and do not know I am dreaming. I feel the terrible dread of being buried alive. I am in a small room and there is no light. It is not a coffin but I am laying down and when I try to stand up I find the short ceiling will not let me. It is completely black and silent. I can reach all four walls at the same time. I feel trapped.

I am terrified. I do not know what to do. There is nothing to do. I cry out and call for help but no one answers. It is all just empty, black and closed. I feel I am going to die. I end up huddled on the floor in a corner. Then after a long time, as though my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, I begin to see a faint glow of light.

There is a dim line of light, just perceptible in the blackness, running along the floor on the opposite side of the room. I crawl over to it and feel around. There is an open space where the wall does not quite meet the floor. It is a gap of about a quarter of an inch. One could only find it from the floor. A tiny bit of light is coming through. There is a faint sweet smell.

After feeling all along the opening I find a kind of hidden latch and a door opens. The whole wall slides up. There is a room with very dim light. It appears that I was in a kind of nave in the wall. I step down into a room of normal height and eight to ten feet square. There is an empty nave just like mine in each of the four walls. I still feel trapped and alone with no way out.

At least I can see now and I feel encouraged by my little bit of success. Perhaps it is all a puzzle I am supposed to figure out. And there is that strange sweet smell. It must be coming from somewhere. I search everywhere for any kind of opening or hidden door. I find nothing.

I keep looking and looking and finding nothing. It seems like years pass and I am defeated again. I am trapped. I am alone. I am going to die. Only when all is lost and no hope seems to remain does a small door appear in a corner. It comes by grace and through no action of mine. This door is a bit smaller then the door from the nave. It is just big enough to squeeze through. The room on the other side is much bigger and there is more light. There is more of the attractive odor. I notice that although the room got bigger the way out got smaller and I know I am in trouble again.

This time I find the next door quickly. Again there is another room on the other side that has more light. There is only one problem. The hole is too small to go through. I can look through but I can not pass. I want to go there. It looks downright nice. But the hole is just too small. I would have to break every bone in my body to get through it.

This time I know where the door is and I do not have to search, but I do nevertheless. I look all around for another way but there is no other path to take. I despair. I yearn to pass through to the next better place, but I can not. All is lost. I am alone. I am going to die.

Now I am fasting. I am becoming a wisp. Finally after what seems like unbearable eons of yearning for the light I try to force myself through the hole. It is too small. I tare my body, the flesh from the bones, and still the way is too narrow. I get part way through and get stuck. Broken and bleeding, the top half of me is in the next room, with the bottom half from the waist down in the last one. My hips will not go through. I am trapped. I am suffocating.

Again I force the impossible and fall into the next room too torn to survive. I know what is next, and there it is, a two inch hole with more light coming from the other side. Bleeding and dying I crawl over to it. I think only passingly how strange it is that I spent an eternity wishing to get where I now am, and all I care about is pursuing the light and the fragrance.

This room is beautiful. If there are walls they are too far away to see. I do not feel trapped anymore. It is good here and it was all meant to be, but I am dying. I understand now that I must die to follow my love. Only my spirit can now pass on to the next part of the journey. And so I die.

As though the fragrance of heaven were a magnet drawing my Soul through a gate, a veil of air flows through the camel’s eye to a place of pure light. There is no floor, but I am not falling. I am not flying. I am not there at all. I am dissolved into what I have yearned for. I am not alone. A billion Souls are with me and we are all in love. I am nothing. The light is joy, the love is eternal, infinite and perfect, and I am free because I am no more.

Consider the following postulation. As the influence of gravity is associated with accumulations of mass in space, so consciousness arises in association with the accumulation of progressive mental and spiritual attainment within the form of the human kingdom.

The perception of an "I" living within the body is an artifact of perspective, a perspective associated with the biological and social accumulation of the tools of mind. But, as I here propose, that mind does not originate from these elements, or from the tools that serve to advance it. It is preexistent and universal. These elements and tools are only the vehicles of a temporary rendering of a deeper presence.

That we think we live in our bodies is an artifact of perspective. There is only one "I Am." There can be only one. If God is all-knowing and omnipresent, then no experience in the life of an individual is beyond His perception or access. One can have no secrets from God.

That I experience the perception of "I am" cannot be beyond His experience. My "I am" cannot in its essence be isolated from His "I AM." In the deepest sense these must be one, even though "I" can never be "He." Individual mind must be part and parcel of The One Mind, an emanation of that divine presence. Even though from our side of the situation, we see only an individuated "I am," from the other side of the equation the entire picture can be seen as one unity.

It is a veil of the moment, a mirage, that we think we are separate, either from God, or from each other. We are the same being, an elephant with amnesia living in an ant hole. We have forgotten that we are in truth a single reality, an immortal presence, not limited by the frailties of the body or even the physical kingdom. It is merely that according to the capacity of the medium, each thing or being reflects the presence and characteristics of the Great Being.

His consciousness, being preexistent, omnipresent and immortal, must necessarily subsume all consciousness. Remembrance of Him is our remedy. His remembrance of us is our immortality.There is no difference. It is a single circuit of energy circulating between the forms of manifestation and preexistence. All these divisions between the temporary renderings of underlying influences will dissolve into nothingness and we will wonder why we every worried about it at all.

Why fear death? Does one fear sleep? Where do we go when we sleep? We do not know, do we? But we have no fear of sleep. We desire its revitalizing rest. This is acceptable to us because we have the experience of waking up in the morning. To attain the equivalent one must die. As it is, there are no reports available from the other side. So follows the need for faith. But, and I am not the first to say so, it is possible to just see it.

"All the various forms exist in the imagination of the perceiver, the substratum being the eternal and all-pervading Vishnu, whose nature is Existence and Intelligence. Names and forms are like bangles and bracelets, and Vishnu is the gold."4

And death shall have no dominion.Dead mean naked they shall be oneWith the man in the wind and the west moon;When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,They shall have stars at elbow and foot;Though they go mad they shall be sane,Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;Though lovers be lost love shall not;And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.Under the windings of the seaThey lying long shall not die windily;Twisting on racks when sinews give way,Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;Faith in their hands shall snap in two,And the unicorn evils run them through;Split all ends up they shan't crack;And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.No more may gulls cry at their earsOr waves break loud on the seashores;Where blew a flower may a flower no moreLift its head to the blows of the rain;Though they be mad and dead as nails,Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,And death shall have no dominion.

Why are personifications of death always portrayed as black and cold, a hooded figure of dark foreboding? It is our attachment to the prison of self. We do not wish to be robbed of the simplicity of the individuated ego, and so we fear the messenger.

When prisoners spend too many years behind bars they often become attached to their confinement, gaining comfort from the predictability of that false limitation of their life’s true potential. Behaviourists refer to this as becoming “institutionalized.” It is an habituation to their truncated potentials. They are released from the responsibility of freedom. Individuation in separate egos can be much the same kind of prison and so we fear to be released from the confinement of the bodies we live in.

Why not think of death as being like sunlight, bright, warm, calm and lofty? Think of resting in green fields of grass with the warmth of the sun beaming down and gentle breezes of flower fragrances flowing over everything. Death need not be seen as a tragic displacement from the world. This transition may be seen as a melding into what has always seemed to be separate from us, a union with the true center of our being, which is in turn the center of all things. To look within, eyes open, unafraid, even in love, with the loss of our prison, is the way home.

When I was a small child of four or five I can remember the most curious question arising within me, a version of “why am I here?” Most children ask “where did I come from?” I wondered why I seem to be in my head looking out, instead of in the air looking in all directions at once. Somehow it seemed to me more natural to be formless and almost omnipresent, than to be located behind my eyes in a human body. There was a part of me that knew where I came from. I came from everywhere. I came from the center.

Bach is not dead. He is immortal. Because we have his music, his fruit, the essence of the beauties he planted must find fertile soil in the heart of the rest of us. So it is with Baha’u’llah. The seed of His magic tree, His Revelation, is planted and nothing can prevent its blossoming when the time of the season has come. Death is not black and cold. It is yellow-white and warm. Its arms are a tender embrace of joy.

There is a unity of living reality so vast and transcendent that to treasure one’s individuality as separate from the whole expanse of His gift to us is as to grip a single grain of sand when galaxies offer themselves. The universe calls and men cling to the dust. Why wish to live as a separate drop of mind when the sea beckons?

What a silly thing it is to wish to live forever as a self of personal identity. I (this man) was not alive in the year 1800. Does that mean I was dead then? No, of course not. Similarly, I shall not be alive in the year 2200. Does that mean I will be dead then? No. It is just that this presence that I consider to be myself is limited by time and space. I am living in California. Does that mean that I am dead in New York? No. What a goofy idea! It is just that I am here and not there. It is the same for time.

Think of how much attention some people pay to becoming thin. Nobody seems to wish to occupy infinite space. Why should an individual wish for their life to occupy infinite time? There is no need for this. This is a confused desire based on a foolish fear. It is our limitations as much as our potentials that define us. Death is just a kind of "time-skin." It is the same as birth, a boundary that makes me who I am, just like my skin, nothing more.

Hundreds of years ago Giordano Bruno proclaimed the stars to be suns and the number of planets with teeming life to be beyond any possibility of counting. The worldly church burned him at the stake for refusing to renounce his vision. How did he know? It is because there is a seed of universal truth in all of us. There is an eye that can see these things if only we would open it.

The spirit of living is so tenacious. Have you seen “Eight Below?” It is the true story of eight sled dogs, who for unavoidable reasons were abandoned at a science outpost at the South Pole. It was intended that they would be retrieved within hours. As events unfolded they were left on their own for nearly six months! No one expected to find anything but frozen corpses. Six of the eight were still alive.

At the bottom of the sea in the blackness of the deep there are thriving oasis of life surviving on the heat of thermal vents, kinds of life totally unexpected. Some of these life forms live in temperatures of as much as 170 degrees. I proclaim as Bruno would that life is everywhere, and furthermore there is no essential distinction between that life and my own. It is all the same presence, a unity, thrust by God into the realm of being.

Mankind as a species has only been here for a million years or so. Life on our planet has been evolving for hundreds of millions of years. The Earth is about four billion years old. The universe since the big bang is about twelve billion years old. Does that sound like a long time? Here is another proclamation. The universe has only just been born.

Our sun will go nova in another five billion years or so. We must move before then. Bigger stars burn faster. Smaller ones persist for longer. It is now understood that some brown dwarf stars may continue to shine for as long as ten trillion years. Now that really is a long time! So what is the real potential of all this living creation that surrounds us? We humans may blink out in a moment, or we may survive for untold ages. The Sea of His grace is so astoundingly vast that there is no possibility of grasping it.

I thank God for my grain of sand, and I do honor it. I know it is meant to be used in the service of His universal plan. But also I thank Him for the thriving seas of existence and I know that to fling my grain of sand into eternity, to surrender it to the infinity of space and time, is no loss to me. It is all the same unity.

Kenji Konishi 4/24/09

"Dancing Skeletons"

A brush stroke is both a symbol and a fact. It both depicts and records. It is both a remnant of the person who made it, and a suggestion to those who have yet to see it. A bit of paint becomes a movement becomes a rose pedal becomes love becomes eternity. The possible layerings of meaning are infinite.

Through the act of living an artist processes the materials around him into a form that both records his presence and propagates his message. A brush stroke is a kind of dance. Life is a kind of dance. The manner of the motion determines the manner of the lasting record. Our deeds determine the nature of our stillness in death. We represent, and we fulfill. We die, yet we remain.

In the Art museum in Seattle is a very fine oriental screen. It is a study in permanent ink of bamboo and dancing skeletons. It is perfect. It means everything all at once. The movement of the artist is plainly recorded in the bold strokes of his brush. The dance of his life is recorded in the meaning of his symbology. Where is he now? He is dead. He is a skeleton. Yet his dance remains.

The Great Being too, is a Dancer, The Artist of Reality, the cosmos His canvas, the heart His colors, and our Spirits His brushes. How then shall be the record of us, of His Faith? Those who would be heard must sing in harmony. Beauty lies in singing, not the same note, and not in discord, but in harmony.

Kenji Konishi

Posted 3/29/09

Written a long time ago.

“Why Rakes Are Zen”

Pleasantly, I have discovered why rakes are Zen. A rake promotes balance. One can not force things with a bamboo rake. They are too fragile. Neither can an idle rake do much but suggest it’s own use. A sleeping rake implies raking. It is not much good for anything else. Picks and shovels look like hard work. A shovel can kill. A rake would not make much of a weapon. To attack someone with a rake would be about like going after them with a broom.

To rake is a perfect balance between action and passivity. It is naturally meditative. Raking doesn’t take much thinking. The raking is much slower than the needed thinking so one can let any desire for an end result recede to the back of the mind and just rake. There is a place where purposes can be let go without losing them. Raking is not hard work. A single stroke doesn’t do much. Yet with persistence whole landscapes can be transformed. One must keep at it.

A rake promotes order and calm. It levels. The more raking, the more serene the result is. A person would do well to be like a rake. To keep going with a constant purpose, but not get too excited about it. A rake has no identity crisis. It doesn’t worry about who it should be. It is a rake. Rakes don’t ware out, not unless one abuses them. One can brake the handle by going at it too hard or by trying to do the wrong thing, but the teeth will never ware out from just raking.

A rake requests responsibility. Not a lot, just a bit. A rake carelessly left laying around can strike back. It needs to be kept with some simple respect. Not a lot, just a bit. A person would do well to be like a rake. To live without hurting others or being willing to suffer abuses from others. A rake is modist. It is not an axe. A rake is humble. It doesn’t yell. A rake will brake if abused. Yet it will move mountains if used with care and perseverance. A rake is a good model for a man.